Tuesday Morning Update

The early summer heat wave continues today and for the rest of the 7 day forecast period with morning lows in the mid to upper 70s and highs in the 103 to 106 range.  A heat advisory will be required today for most of Eastern OK.  An ozone alert is also underway for the Tulsa and OKC metro areas today and may be extended for several days this week.  

We tied the all time record high of 105 yesterday and we'll be close again today with highs in the 100 to 105 range.  The difference today will be the surface wind direction.  A weak boundary has entered far Eastern OK and will allow the winds to be from an easterly direction for most of the day before backing from the southeast later this afternoon.  This easterly direction may be just enough to keep us down a degree compared to yesterday, but the impact on sensible weather will be negligent. "Hot" is the weather word regardless of the wind direction today.  The temperature heat index values may also be a tad higher in spots and we'll keep that range from 105 to 110 in the forecast today. 

The Ozone numbers were through the roof yesterday and may have been the highest ever recorded in Tulsa.  We're not going to get too in-depth on what "exactly" this means, but here's the take away:  folks with respiratory problems may experience significant problems with high levels of ozone in the lower levels and should more than likely limit exposure during the afternoon and late afternoon time periods.   

The models offer very little hope for any big changes.  The NAM attempts to split the 594 ridge into two separate chunks while flattening the overall pattern, while the GFS is totally out to lunch by breaking down the ridge and sliding it west.  Once again, the favored model will be the EURO which flattens the ridge slightly but has no major changes in the 850 temp fields.  Bottom line:  we're going to keep the triple digits in the forecast across the 7 day period.  

The EURO also depicts a small tropical like wave that moves across southern Texas this weekend.  This will not have a direct impact on our weather, but it may allow for an interruption of moisture flow into the state while also helping to "slightly flatten" the upper air ridge.

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